The Six of Swords

As above, so below, in addition to 4, comes 2, adding dimension to the world, six swords to pierce my heart, six swords to guide me home.
I sit on the chair today, almost unwilling to move, yet I know that the journey must be taken. As above so below, and with that kept foremost in my mind, I rise slowly and approach the wooden stairs. Step by polished step I go, my feet bare today on the soft oiled wood, feeling the grain beneath my toes as they propel me up towards the landing of the Hallway of Beginnings…. the beginnings of dreams that have no end… folding in on themselves as they spiral into eternity in the prismatic corridors of the universe. I sometimes imagine that I am walking along the strands of my own DNA, unraveling the codes that lie there, looking at the landscapes of my distant ancestors, their imprint echoing like the yearning of distant stars whose light outlives them.
As I open the door today, the banner blows around my face, the silvered icy colours shimmering in the air, a haze of pixelated fractals, an effervescent mirage that finally releases me into a sparse and crystalline desert landscape. I look around me, the wind keening in my ears like a distant and elderly Muezzin….. Calling me to prayer… and my gaze settles eventually on a tall multidimensional structure, a huge Desert Rose…that legendary flower of the storms, birthed when lightening strikes in the desert and creates a vision of solidified fire from the shifting sands. Nearby to the Rose, stands an elephant, who appears, in true journeying tradition, to be waiting for me. The Elephant is associated with the path from Geburrah to Tiphareth, so it is perhaps no surprise to find him here. I walk carefully over to him, I am trying not to startle him, but it is as if he cannot see me, perhaps I walk within his dream too, and he is really, as far as he is concerned, resting under a shady tree in the noon sun…. far away in another world, not this place of Air and shards of solidified fire. I rest my forehead upon his leathery trunk…. And I am drawn into a kaleidoscope of images, memories of my past, stretching all the way back to my birth and beyond. Back, back I go, back beyond my mothers birth, then back further, a hundred years, further and on into the mists of my past. And then it turns around, and I am propelled into the future, or so I would imagine this to be, and strange visions seep through into my mind of places that I cannot even begin to comprehend, of beings and worlds that have no foundations in my consciousness today. The images flash in front of my eyes at extraordinary speed, creating a banner of shimmering light streaming through my mind. I understand then that our thoughts are not new, that our decisions are based in an awareness of all this information that lives in continuity within us.
I thanked the elephant for this knowledge, and turned again to look at the Desert Rose. This time, there was movement coming from beneath the stone petals, and figures were emerging from beneath the sand. Six stately lines of figures, walking silently and serenely out into the desert, leaving the rose far behind them, bearing with them a perpetual stream of living consciousness out into the world. And then like some Escher painting they all appeared to be walking back towards the rose, and as they came they brought with them new life, for in their arms they carried swathes of greenery and as they walked, they clothed the landscape with color and life, breathing love and understanding into the grey stones and the barren sands. As I watched the figures, I realized what was happening. As our thoughts are continuously directed outwards into the world, our vitality leaves us eventually, leaving us to become as dry and barren as this windswept place, where nothing can grow. I see that it is important to look to the heart of the matter in order to sustain the self….. symbolized by the beautiful stone flower in front of me, a geometric crystallized structure, formed from the chaos of the elements within the desert. A stone of solidified Fire, a replicated vision of the breath of God, divine light brought to earth and manifested in a thing of beauty. A circle within a square.

The 6 of Swords
Science
Mercury in Aquarius
The Lord of Earned Success

My name is Joanna Grant, I am an Astrologer, Tarot Reader and Writer, who lives om the beautiful Beara Peninsular in the South West of Ireland. My long knowledge of Astrology leads and informs my practice in offering guidance and empowerment, helping others to lead a more authentic and magical life. You can read more about me here.

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